The random musings of a fashion addict about life and love, the positive and the negative.

Month: October 2014

You hit me like a fire, shot me like a bulletBurned me up and down, no way to cool itBut every time you kiss me, it’s like sunshine and whiskey

It occurred to me after I made my last post that perhaps my photos are distorting and blurring because I make them too small. They are originally 1024×1024 and I was displaying them on my blog as 512×512 because I thought I remembered pictures being too big distorting the theme of the page and making it a visual nightmare.

Currently in the preview, I don’t see it doing that… so I’m trying to make my pictures a little bigger (displaying at 600×600 now), so we’ll see if this doesn’t fix the problem. I’m also perusing for a new layout for the blog to allow for the images to display a bit larger without being eaten by the sidebar. So consider it a work in progress. Feel free to let me know if these look clearer to you?

There’s nothing incredibly special in this post. Not that I don’t adore the clothing and things I’m wearing… I do! Some of my favourite designers are featured this go around… but they are mostly old releases and things that were laying around in my inventory that I felt like wearing.

My Jarl seems to like my Lola’s on me… and so I was looking to put together and outfit that was still ‘me’, but leaving my chest bare so I could wear them for Him. And of course the hair needed to cover the important bits, in order to be appropriate for blogging. And so going back into my arsenal… I mean, my inventory – heh… I threw this together, and thought I would share it!

Also… I’ve started to get a bit bolder in my photo editing… doing more hand-drawing of shadows and highlights to try and make certain features more prominent. (Like the highlights in the hair of these photos.) Because I share the opinion of those who get irritated when they see something amazing looking in a blog post, only to buy the item and have it look nothing like I think, because the photo was over-photoshopped, I will do my best to indicate if something has been photoshopped. Something like “highlights enhanced” or “shadows added”. I try to do as little as possible on things I’m showcasing for actual sponsors… but I will do my best to indicate edits that I’ve made, so you know what to expect if you purchase the item I’m showing.

So, how about a story from Gor!

I find it very interesting how little roleplay seems to be valued in Gor Evolved (GE), as opposed to BtB. Most places in BtB, you can run into people roleplaying in the open, and actually embracing their respective roles. Slaves who are dancers can find themselves dancing a bit in the tavern… Blacksmiths will be in their place, making branding irons, collars… and for that matter Blacksmiths are sought after for things like removing a collar and the like, as opposed to god-modding, “Oh, it’s a key collar.” Bitch, please… I live in the North. Torvie collars are often bolted or welded. You need a Blacksmith for that shit!

I just seem to have become fortunate enough that my Owners value roleplay and actually like to participate in it occasionally. Yesterday, the three of us actually roleplayed together a bit. My Jarl and Mistress were giving each other shit in various ways… Him trying to disrobe her, She throwing a hissy fit and storming off into the bedroom, threatening to wear pants and a sweater, Him threatening to collar her if she started dressing like a Man. And I was cooking dinner. Dinner was cooked, served, and eaten together, in roleplay. It was a really nice moment, and something that I didn’t realize how much I’d missed until it happened.

Of course, it can’t be all sunshine and rainbows, right?

During said roleplay, our group was trying to get numbers to go raid. (Please note: Not rescuing one of our own. Just a regular raid.) When the call went out, asking for people who were interested, my Mistress actually spoke up and said that she couldn’t, because she was roleplaying. Most places I’d been in BtB would’ve responded with, “Ok, no problem. Thanks for the answer, though!” or something similar. The response that we received? “Perhaps rp could be paused to pew and get a cap? :P”

All in all, it wasn’t a disrespectful or douchebag-ish response or anything. It was just a question. But it still sorta brought me back to the reality of GE… raiding will always be valued over RP. Now, if it were a RESCUE to go and save one of our own, then I would totally understand pausing RP, getting them out, and then coming back. But raiding should be incredibly voluntary. You shouldn’t feel like you’re going to be questioned or looked at as any less dedicated if you choose to stay home from a raid and roleplay instead.

We stayed and roleplayed. But that question still turned over in my head for quite some time. It still kinda does.

Needless to say, I am incredibly blessed with my Owners. And I learn more reasons why every day. ❤

Love, how many times can a heart break?Love, how much weight can a soul take?And love, I don’t know where You ran off to…But love, I still believe in You.

Oh look, I’m in pink! This is rare… so… don’t get used to it.

But I couldn’t help it today… this new dress from Dead Dollz made me feel extremely girly for some reason. It’s called The Miller’s Daughter gown… and for whatever reason, I couldn’t help but channel Little House on the Prairie meets Fairy princess. I don’t know. It’s a little strange, but it’s about the only time I’ve willingly worn pink and not cringed.

It should be noted, there are other colors of this gown, accessed via a hud. A blue, a plain white, a green, a black and this pink. I just happened to pick pink today and actually like it. So I stuck with it.

I had to pull a couple of things from past gacha events that I actually sorta forgot I had. Including the staff from Enfant Terrible… which, as much as I pulled that damn machine to get the staff in White, I’m pretty ashamed that I forgot I had it until I needed it. LOL.

Also, I don’t know if it’s just me… or what… but ever since I moved my computer from one place to another, every time I upload a picture from my computer to my blog, it doesn’t seem as sharp as it did in Photoshop. Again, maybe it’s just me… but if it’s not, then I promise they’re supposed to be much sharper. Heh. I don’t know how to fix it. -.-

Fun fact about the song used for today’s tune… I took a drive yesterday evening to clear my head for a bit… and, this should tell you how close I am to the border… I drove into Florida, stopped to get something for dinner, and turned around and came home. I had never heard this song before, until that drive. It was very relevant to me at the time, and I had to pull the car over and stop to listen to the lyrics. So I thought I’d share it today with this very fairytale-like outfit.

Some of you may have heard of an event called Enchantment. (Website link attached to the name, for more details!) The first thing that jumps out to me about this event, on the Designers’ “Application” (I use quotes because the event is invite only, but designers can ask for their store to be looked at by the staff) is that it truly brings back the meaning of “exclusive” items. The items created for Enchantment are never to be resold in that exact form again. They are truly exclusive to the event. Score one for those organizers! I like them already.

How Enchantment works, from how I understand it (I plan to participate this round, as I didn’t during the last one… so I’m operating solely on how I believe I understand it)… Designers design at least 2 exclusive items for the event: 1 to be sold in their store, and 1 to be offered as a ‘prize’ (more explanation on that in a moment.)

Shoppers purchase an item from the store, and inside that item’s folder is a stamp card. You can then collect stamps on the stamp card, and once you reach a certain number (or fill it… I’ve not seen the card, so I can’t say for sure), you are able to select ONE prize. Each designer makes a prize, so you have plenty to choose from. It sounds like a fun little event to me, and I look forward to seeing what the designers have done for this particular fairy tale.

Oh yeah, did I mention that each round’s theme is based on one of Grimm’s Fairytales? Love it!

Pictured above, you can see Dead Dollz exclusive item that was created to be sold with the stamp card for the event, The Miller’s Daughter choker. It reminds me of something incredibly classic, the ribbon choker with the pendent in the middle… but I love it. Maybe it’s because it reminds me of an elegant collar. Ever the slave, right?!

The dress, pictured more fully in the first picture, as well as below, is the creation that Kiddo has made to offer as a prize you can choose once you complete your stamp card. As I mentioned earlier, it comes with a hud that lets you choose between white, black, pink, blue, and green. The chokers are made in matching colors, as you can see.

This is Kiddo’s first delve into the fantasy realm of designing, bringing her elegant haute couture attention to detail into this side of the fashion circuit. I can neither confirm nor deny her presence in future fantasy events… *Smirks* However, I look forward to seeing more from Dead Dollz!

Here lies a girl whose only crutchWas loving One Man just a little too muchIf You go before I doI’m gonna tell the gravedigger that He’d better dig two

There is probably nothing more dangerous than me bored at a Fantasy event with lindens to spare. I visited The Fantasy Collective the other night… and it kinda shows, I think. *Laughs*

I’m probably pushing it a bit, for being a slave… in being a little ‘too covered’, but I just consider myself making up for the abundance of Free Women in Gor that don’t cover up enough. Heh. I just love these pants too much… even if they aren’t very ‘slave-like’… I didn’t buy the matching shirt, though… as much as I liked it. I would be too tempted to wear it, and then I’d really be pushing “inappropriately dressed Free Woman” territory.

Meanwhile, I feel relatively counter-productive in Gor lately. For the last two weeks or so I’ve been on a slower internet connection, and so I can barely move around normally, just walking… let alone go on raids and fight. Which is sad. I miss fighting, already. So I tend to hang around camp and ask for captives… which really only works half the time. Though I do admit that it’s pretty entertaining to listen to Team Speak while they’re fighting somewhere.

“Wait… why am I going lower… is there a place I can go up’er?” (Up’er… like upper… but totally not what He meant…)

What never ceases to amaze me about Gor, though, is that people can’t seem to understand it’s not really in good form to complain about shit that you, yourself do. Lol.

Those who live in laggy sims should not complain about a small amount of lag elsewhere. I’m not naming any one group here, though I’m incredibly tempted to. It just… never ceases to amaze me that a few groups who have extremely laggy sims, who know they have laggy sims and do nothing about it, go elsewhere and have the nerve to complain about lag. 90% of the time, whatever lag you are experiencing elsewhere is a cakewalk compared to the shit we go through when we go to your sim. We deal with it. So should you.

Those who regularly engage in pew-pew only raids should not complain when a group chooses not to take a captive from you. If you are not going to take a captive elsewhere, running around Gor raiding just to fight… or troll… then you are not in a position to make a single complaint when a group raids you and decides there is no one there that they want to take as a captive. Perhaps if you roleplayed more, people would be more inclined to take you. Heaven forbid we roleplay in Gor, hey?

This one isn’t exactly a ‘don’t complain about shit you do’… but the other extremely irritating thing about Gor is that people don’t seems to understand it is ok to lose. Every time people lose in a raid, they immediately look for something or someone to blame. They do it in sparring too. Someone goes down, “Ugh, I’m so lagged right now.” No. Just admit that someone might actually be a better fighter than you. Or that someone actually got the upper hand in that moment. Jesus. It’s ok to lose. I promise.

Stars are only visible in darknessFear is ever-changing and evolvingAnd I…I feel poisoned insideBut I…I feel so alive!

I hate most scary movies.

Like… for whatever reason, I adored the Saw movies, all 7 of them… the psychological mindfuck of them all definitely triumphed over the gorey aspects of the series… but things like The Exorcist, Ammityville Horror, the Halloween movies… actual “horror” movies like that… hate them. Can’t stand them. Don’t watch them. Stay far away from them.

I think part of that stems from the fact that I was forced to watch The Exorcist (the original… not a remake) in a dark basement in a house out in the middle of nowhere in the country, at night, at the age of 5. Pretty much soured me on the whole scary movie experience, unfortunately.

However, with all that said, I LOVE Halloween.

Maybe it’s the dressup element… everyone showing their inner creative God/Goddess for that one night a year (at least). So many people have it in them to be creative… in their clothing as well as in their life in general. But so few seem to embrace it. Everyone is afraid of failure. Everyone is afraid of the opinions of others being too harsh. And I realize I’m the last one to be speaking on this… because I care WAY too much about what other people think of me a lot of times… but I guess I just really like that Halloween seems to be the one night a year where people do what they want, let the creativity flow through them, and don’t give a shit if someone else likes it or not. They’re proud of their work, and that’s all that matters.

Then November 1st rolls around and everyone pretends it never happened and goes back to caring way too much and locking their creativity away. That’s the catch.

Anyway, I was sitting on Facebook the other day, catching up on some stuff and checking in on some people, like our beloved CC who is healing from surgery… and I saw a post populate on my screen of a photo of PurpleMoon’s Halloween group gift. Now, I have more than enough stuff in my inventory that I’m behind on blogging (sorry about that!)… but I just HAD to go down and grab this outfit and do it up for a blog. I fell in love with an ad photo.

And I liked it. 😛

This dress comes with almost everything in these pictures, except the makeup and blindfold, really. It has the dress, the feature bustle skirt in the back, the wings, the huge, gorgeous feather collar, the fallen feathers along the outsides. It even comes with a mask, but I’d had my blindfold on at the time and decided to keep that on instead.

The best part? It’s a GROUP GIFT, in case you didn’t see that earlier. If you’re a member of the PurpleMoon Creations group, you get this gift for free just by going to the store and clicking on the vendor. If you’re not a member of the group already, it’s just a small L$50 fee to join. And I know that groups with join fees can be annoying to some… but just look at this outfit… and the quality of what is given to you. All this quality for only L$50? And that’s just ONE group gift. Poulet does more than just one a year. I can assure you! *Laughs*

So, yes. Go get it. It’s rare that I devote most of a post to actually advertising what I’m wearing… but I fell so in love I just had to talk about it. Get the dress. Get it. You know you wanna. 😀

If I wanted to leaveI would’ve left by nowBut You’re the only one that knows meBetter than I know myself…

Gotta love GE, where a collared slave can run around camp with a bow and scimitar for the sake of a blog photo, trying to maneuver a prim so she can stand near the well, since it’s phantom. Lol. The things I do at 7 in the morning.

But there’s totally a reason for blogging this early in the morning. I mean, aside from the fact that I can’t sleep. I got a notice from the VoguE bloggers group about a new item released to blog… and I went to see. I felt kinda bad since I took more of a ‘fantasy’ spin to 90% of my blog posts, with being back in Gor, there just wasn’t a lot of room for a lot of the couture that has been coming out of VoguE lately. I adore all of Zalyn’s creations. I was just in a severe styling funk with how to pair her gorgeous work with the mood I’ve been in lately.

Until I saw these pants.

Pants can be simple things, and I love the simplicity of these pants… but I thought they were perfect to show the versatility of any designer, when it comes to designing ‘genres’. When searching for ‘Gorean’ clothing (for GE, mind You… we’re not talking By the Book here… that’s a whoooole other animal), I’m sure VoguE is not the first name that would come to mind… however, for a Free Woman who’s looking for a good pair of pants, this release may be right up Your alley. Of course, if You’re going to be pairing it with a shawl like I did, You might want to find an undershirt to cover the skin that’s showing. I just happen to be able to get away with it, as a slave. Muahaha. Love you, Free Women. I promise. ❤

I’m also highlighting a few creations that I invested in myself from a couple events: The Gathering, and Mystic Realms Faire. I realize I’m a bit late on The Gathering… but the early release date was right before I left for the week in Indiana with family stuff to do… so I grabbed what I wanted and then had to unpack it when I got back. So I’m still sorting. Lol.

The OTHER reason for blogging, is that there is a pretty awesome opportunity right now, being offered by VoguE. Some of you know that I used to model a lot more frequently than I do now, limiting myself now to mostly charity work through the amazing Models Giving Back, run by Jamee Binder. However, I know there are several out there who do still enjoy modeling opportunities, and even some who are newer and are looking to get into modeling. I’ll tell you what… in-store modeling was a nice start for me. I had just come out of a HORRIBLE pageant experience with the Pageant that Shall Not Be Named, and Sascha from Sascha’s Designs looked at me and said, “Come model for me.” I stood on a pose stand and looked pretty during the late night hours, learning how to style formal gowns the way she wanted, and it was really an opportunity to isolate styling skills and work on them without the pressure of a runway or casting situation.

All that to say that VoguE is casting for models again! They did this last year, and they were satisfied enough with the results that they’re bringing it back again this year. The process is pretty simple:

That’s it! If you are shortlisted to the Top 10 models from this selection process, you will be invited to take place in a closed Runway casting on November 22nd, 2014 at 8am SLT, so please make sure that before you apply, you are available for this casting, should you be chosen.

What’s on the notecard? What’s the picture, you ask? Good question! Your notecard should contain the following:

SL Name (no display names, please)

Rezz Date

Any modeling certificates you’ve earned

Previous modeling experience

Why do you want to work with VoguE?

What can you offer VoguE?

List your Blog, Flickr, etc here.

Headshot (512×512) wearing any item from VoguE

Full Body Picture (512×512) wearing any item from VoguE

These photographs listed to NOT need to be edited… in fact, VoguE staff is upfront and honest in saying they are going to be looking strictly at your styling, so unnecessary editing may actually hinder the process.

Any questions about the casting can be directed to Sessie16 Resident, VoguE Manager.

I’ve been spending the last eight monthsThinking all love ever does is breakAnd burn… and end…But on a Wednesday, in a cafeI watched it begin again

Well, here I am again. Depending on how much some of you knew from me personally… I disappeared for about a week, week and a half being sick… and just as soon as I came back, my grandmother’s health turned for the worst and she passed away. Those that remember in February, I had to make the 12 hour drive to take care of all those arrangements and then make the 12 hour drive back. That took me away for another week or so. So I apologize for the month or so away. It’s just been a mess.

The mess is (slowly) coming under control again.

I think.

Meanwhile, one of the first things I did when I came back was rewrite my character in Gor. I didn’t exactly kill off sapphire… I don’t think I could really do that, given that sapphire’s storyline was always an extension of nia’s/emmy’s… and that started 6 years ago. A few people did some stuff that screwed up it… like when Valdyr tried to avenge emmy’s death a week after she died… so the timer had reset, etc. But for the most part, her storyline stayed in tact, and so I was super impressed.

But unfortunately, when I began nia’s/emmy’s storyline, mambas were very rare in SL Gor… and so it was something that provided a unique angle to roleplay, being raised by them. There’s not a lot about them in the books, so it wasn’t a role a lot of people took on… even in GE. But NOW… they run rampant. People seem to have taken the fact that there’s not a lot in the books about mambas to mean that they can make up anything and everything they want about them. It began to irritate me. And also, given my love of Gorean dance outside of my roleplay, I wanted to be able to play my character more as a dancer… and found it hard to believe that the clumsy slave raised by mambas would be graceful enough to be a dancer.

So… I rewrote her. Meet wyntir.

Wyntir is a lot darker than sapphire was… as you can clearly see. Lol. The way she’s written is she was Gorean-born, the daughter of outlaws that lived in a camp on the outskirts of Port Kar. (*Watches fellow Gorean dancers cringe, especially Rya, and giggles*) Her curiosity got the best of her and as she grew older she started exploring the city. She got caught and enslaved and trained.

And now she’s at Vydarr, after being fully trained in Port Kar.

I didn’t change camps, so a lot of things have stayed the same… she’s still a fighting slave… up until a few days ago, she was a camp slave. Oh yeah… that changed. *Laughs* A few days ago, she was collared. And ya know… for once, I didn’t expect it. Sure, He’s an amazing person, I guess I just never thought He’d see me. I had sorta come to the same conclusion that Rya and Kimmie had shortly before Kimmie died… some people just aren’t meant for personal/private collars. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s just not for everyone.

It wasn’t a conclusion I wanted to come to. But it was one that was sorta continuously shown to me. I finally sorta gave in to it.

But this One… He’s different. As I said, I never thought He’d even so much as look at me. That stupid feeling girls get in, like, middle school, where it’s like, “Omg this boy is amazing. But why would He ever see me?” That was how I felt. Complete with butterflies and everything else. The night He collared me, I was shaking. Shaking! When is the last time I can say that I felt that way? I can’t remember. I dunno. It was ridiculous, I admit it. Haha.

He looked at me. He actually looked AT me, and not THROUGH me. That’s the only way I can really describe what happened. He looked at me and actually saw me. And He didn’t hate what He saw. For that, I can only thank Him. Because He’s made me happy. And I can only hope that I can make Him at least smile. For the first time in a long time, I look at someone and find myself overwhelmed with simply wanting Him to be happy. I don’t know. It’s weird.

Alex, You hear me? You’re weird! ❤ P.s. He blogs too. You can find Him here.